Posts Tagged Nicholas Kristof

I’ve already weighed in on Bono’s “humbling” realizations about capitalism and commerce, noting that although I’m still not overly confident in the direction of Bono’s efforts, such a realization is an encouraging sign. Yet despite my original skepticism — which Greg Forster found a bit too heavy-handed — Bono has continued with this theme, arguing more recently that “commerce and entrepreneurial capitalism take more people out of poverty than aid.” Consider me pleased.

Although I routinely have strong and significant disagreements with Gerson’s overall approach, particularly on the topic of aid, his remarks in this particular talk are pretty close to the mark. Even where we disagree, I continue to find his arguments on particular global health initiatives to be compelling challenges to my own less interventionist positions.

If you had $12 extra, would you buy a few drinks or send your kids to school?

Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a column discussing an often-ignored detail about poverty-stricken cultures — that the poor are prone to the same vices as the rich.

The poorest of the world certainly don’t have much to live on — the World Bank claims it’s as little as $1 a day — but what is even more startling is how wasteful people can be when they have so little.

“[I]f the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households.”

We often hear about how the West is prosperous because of unfettered greed, but what many fail to see is how greed is an inherently human characteristic that rarely leads to any sustainable good.

Kristof provides several instances where the extremely poor choose to put self-indulgent (and self-destructive) habits in front of basic necessities (e.g. education, mosquito nets, medicine, etc.). For one Congolese family, the Obamzas, the father chooses to spend $12 a month on alcohol rather than pay $2.50 a month for each of his children’s school tuition. He also refuses to pay $6 for a mosquito net, even though two of his children have already died from malaria.

In this case, it appears that irrational self-interest is the primary culprit. The socio-economic conditions of the Congo Republic are bad enough as it is, but here we can see how one man’s greed is Read the rest of this entry »